/ 



ANT HO NT IVATNE 



BY 

SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER 



Printed by 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1908 






Reprinted from the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and 
Biography, Vol. XXXII 



ANTHONY WAYNE/ 



" Egregias animas, quae sanguine nobis banc pa- 
triam peperere suo, decorate supremis muneribus." 

BY HON, SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER, LL.D. 

[An address delivered at Valley Forge, June 20, 1908, in the 
presence of the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution at the dedi- 
cation of the equestrian statue of Major General Anthony Wayne, Com- 
mander-in-Chief United States Army, erected by the Commonwealth.] 

At the close of the unsuccessful campaign of 1777, which 
had resulted in the capture, by the British under Sir William 
Howe, of Philadelphia, the capital city of the revolted colo- 
nies, Washington, in writing, requested the opinions of his 
generals as to what should be his military policy during the 
approaching winter. One of them, a brigadier, then thirty- 
two years of age, after making a full review of the situation, 
recommended for the army either a camp at Wilmington, 
" or hutting at the distance of about twenty miles west of 
Philadelphia." The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, after 
the lapse of one hundred and thirty-one years, in the pres- 
ence of the descendants of the men who fought the battles 
of the Revolution, to-day erects this equestrian statue in 



^ This study was prepared mainly from original letters of Wayne and 
the other generals of the Revolution in the library of the Historical 
Society of Pennsylvania, 

1 



2 Anthony Wayne. 

bronze, in memory of him who so accurately forecasted, if 
he did not determine, the encampment at Valley Forge. 
She presents him to mankind as a soldier who participated 
with honor and unusual eclat in nearly every important en- 
gagement from Canada in the ISTorth to Georgia in the South 
throughout that struggle, and as the capable general-in-chief 
of the army of the United States, who later amid vast difficul- 
ties, and in personal command, brought to a successful result 
what has proven to be in its consequences one of the most 
momentous wars in which the country has ever been engaged. 

Anthony "Wayne had other and earlier associations with 
the Valley Forge. Within four miles of this camp ground, 
in the Township of Easttown, in the County of Chester, he 
was born, and from here in 1758 he hauled the hides 
bought by his father at the store in connection with the 
forge where the family of Potts hammered out their iron. 

His grandfather, Anthony Wayne, went from Yorkshire, 
in England, to Ireland, where he fought in the battle of the 
Boyne among the forces of William III, and he afterward 
emigrated to Pennsylvania. 

Isaac Wayne, the youngest son of the immigrant, was 
the owner of a large tract of land in Easttown, which he 
cultivated and where he had a tannery, and he was beside 
much concerned in the political controversies of the time. 
The popular Party, the opponents of the proprietary interests, 
elected him to the Provincial Assembly for several terms. 
He had a bitter quarrel with Moore of Moore Hall, an old-time 
aristocrat and pet of the Governor, both Colonel and Judge, 
and he has the lasting distinction of being one of the charac- 
ters portrayed in the Chronicles of Nathan Ben Saddi, 1758, 
one of the brightest and most spirited bits of literature the 
American Colonies produced. St. David's Episcopal Church 
at Kadnor, an ancient shrine where Parson Currie preached 
and starved, sung about by poets and written about by 
historians, owed very much to his earnest and loyal support. 

Anthony Wayne, son of Isaac, looming up before us to- 
day, was born January 1, 1745, and grew to young man- 



Anthony Wayne. 3 

liood upon his father's plantation of over five hundred 
acres, and about the tannery, traces of which still remain. 
He had the benefit of a somewhat desultory education re- 
ceived from an uncle living in the country, and he spent 
two years in Philadelphia at the academy out of which arose 
the University of Pennsylvania. The bent of his mind 
even in boyhood was to mathematics rather than to literar 
ture. At the time of the French and Indian war, wherein 
his father had served as a captain, he was at an age when 
startling events make their strongest and most lasting im- 
pressions, and in his sport he discarded balls and marbles 
to construct intrenchments and engage in mimic battles. 
At the academy he studied surveying and determined to 
make that occupation the pursuit of his life. An elaborate 
and somewhat artistic survey of the Township of Vincent, 
in Chester County, made by him in 1774, is preserved in 
the library of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and 
liis correspondence relating to military afiairs is often illus- 
trated with the plans which he drew. 

In 1765, when in his twenty-first year, in association with 
Matthew Clarkson; John Hughes, the stamp collector; Wil- 
liam Smith, the creator of the university ; William Moore 
of Moore Hall; Joseph Richardson, captain in the French 
and Indian war; Benjamin Franklin; Israel Jacobs, after- 
ward a member of Congress; and others of the leading men 
of the province, he participated in an eflEbrt to found a 
colony in Canada. One hundred thousand acres of land 
on the St. John's River and a tract of like extent on the 
Peticoodiac River were granted to them. A town was 
located, lots were sold, and settlers were transported. 
Wayne went to Canada with Benjamin Jacobs as the sur- 
veyor for the company, and spent the summers of 1765 
and 1766 there, but the enterprise resulted in failure, and 
at the time of his death he still owned his proportion of 
these lands. To some extent his activities found expression 
in a civil career. In several of the conventions which took 
the preliminary steps leading up to the Revolutionary War, 



4 Anthony Wayne. 

he as a delegate bore an active part; in 1775 he was a mem- 
ber of the Committee of Safety; for three years he sat in 
the Assembly, and he was a member of the Council of Cen- 
sors, and of the Pennsylvania Convention Avhich ratified the 
Constitution of the United States. These public services, 
important as they may have been, were only incidental and 
subsidiary in determining the value of the labors of his life. 

With the first breath of the coming war blowing from the 
northward in 1775, the instincts of the soldier plunged him 
into the field and he organized a regiment of " minute men" 
in Chester County. 

On the 4th of January, 1776, he was appointed Colonel 
of the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment. This regiment, to- 
gether with the Second and Sixth, was formed into a brigade 
under the command of General Wm. Thompson, and hur- 
ried away to Canada. Montgomery had been killed, Arnold 
had been defeated in an assault upon Quebec, and that army 
badly needed help. The forces from far away Pennsylvania 
reached them on the fifth of June at the mouth of the Sorel, 
betv/een Quebec and Montreal, whither they had retreated. 
Sullivan, who w^as in command, a week later ordered 
Thompson with 1450 men, all of them Pennsylvanians 
except a battalion from New Jersey under Maxwell, to 
attack a force of British estimated to be four hundred 
strong, at Three Rivers, forty-seven miles down the St. 
Lawrence. Instead of being a surprise, as had been ex- 
pected, the effort resulted in an encounter with three thou- 
sand men under Burgoyne. After a march of nine miles 
through a swamp under fire from the boats in the river, 
with Wayne in the advance, the gallant troops pushed their 
way up to the breastworks of the enemy, before unknown, 
and then were compelled to retreat. Thompson, Irvine and 
other officers had been captured ; three hundred and fifty 
men had been lost, but Anthony Wayne had fought his first 
battle and received the first of many wounds, and they had 
" saved the army in Canada." Two days later he wrote 
cheerily " our people are in high spirits and long for another 



Anthony Wayne. 5 

bout." Nevertheless the army was in full retreat to Ticon- 
deroga, and already Wayne, left in command of the Penn- 
sylvania troops, had found the place of danger. Wilkinson 
tells that Allen said to him, "Colonel Wayne is in the 
rear," and if anybody could render assistance, " he is the 
man," that he found " the gallant soldier as much at his 
ease as if he were marching to a parade at exercise," and 
that when mistaken for the enemy by Sullivan, he " pulled 
out his glass and seemed to enjoy the panic." 

Already he had made his mark. On the 18th of Novem- 
ber, General Schuyler gave him the command of Fort 
Ticonderoga, at that time, since the British had in view a 
separation of the country by an advance from Canada, one 
of the most important of our military posts, and placed him 
at the head of a force of twenty-five hundred men. " It was 
my business," he says in one of his letters, " to prevent a 
junction of the enemy's armies and .... to keep at bay 
their whole Canadian force." 

He remained at Ticonderoga until April 12th, 1777. His 
stay there covered that depressing period of the war prior 
to the battle of Trenton, during which Washington was 
defeated at Long Island, three thousand men were lost with 
Fort Washington, and the main army, its officers retiring 
and its rank and file deserting, was threatened with entire 
disintegration. Difficulties accumulated around him. The 
terms of service of his soldiers expired, and to fill their 
places became almost impossible. Some of the soldiers, who 
came into camp from the Eastern States, on one occasion 
deserted the same night. Recruiting officers from the same 
part of the country were endeavoring to secure enlistments 
even in his own regiment. He was holding men three weeks 
after their terms of service were ended. Hearing that a 
company, claiming their enlistments to have expired the 
month before, were on the march for home, he halted them 
and called for their leader. A sergeant stepped to the front. 
" I presented a pistol to his breast. He fell on his knees to 
beg his life. I then ordered the whole to ground their 



6 Anthony Wayne. 

arms," and they obeyed. A certain Josiah Holliday en- 
deavored again to incite them to mutiny, whereupon Wa3^ne 
" thought proper to chastise him for his insolence on the 
spot, before the men," or as Holliday himself puts it, did 
" shamefully beat and abuse him." The captain interfered 
and was placed under arrest for abetting a mutiny. 

The garrison had dwindled in numbers and one-third of 
them were Negroes, Indians and children. The enemy 
were threatening his own home in distant Chester County, 
and the only comfort he could give his wife " Polly," the 
daughter of Bartholomew Penrose, was to tell her: " Should 
you be necessitated to leave Easttown, I doubt not but you'll 
meet with hospitality in the back parts of the Province," 
and yet never for an instant did he falter. He had studied 
the campaigns of Caesar and Marshal Saxe, and he believed 
that too much attention was given to forming lines and too 
little to disciplining and manceuvring : that "the only good 
lines are those nature made," and that American liberty 
would never be established until the army learned " to beat 
the English Rebels in the field." He constructed an abattis 
around the fort, octagons upon the top of an adjacent mount, 
built two new block-houses to render the station tenable and 
secure, and then he wrote to Schuyler asking to be sent to 
the South in order to meet " those Sons of War and rapine 
face to face and man to man." He added : " These worthy 
fellows [his Pennsylvania comrades] are second to none in 
courage. I have seen them proved and I know they are 
not far behind any regulars in point of discipline. Such 
troops actuated by principle, and fired with just resentment, 
must be an acceptable and perhaps seasonable reenforcement 
to General "Washington at this critical juncture." 

He received a commission as brigadier general February 
21, 1777, and two months later Washington, then in New 
Jersey, wrote to him, " Your presence here will be mate- 
rially wanted." For nearly a year he had successfully 
maintained the post at Ticonderoga, which was surrendered 
almost as soon as he had departed, and had confronted the 



Anthony Wayne. 7 

proposed advance of the army under Burgoyne, and now 
after " the charming Miss Schuyler" had made him a new 
cockade, he hastened to Morristown to take command of 
the Pennsylvania Line in the army of Washington. Just as 
within the memories of some of us, who are here present, 
Pennsylvania during the War of the Rebellion, alone of all 
the States, had an entire division in the service, known as 
the Pennsylvania Reserves, in like manner there were in 
the Continental service throughout the War of the Revolu- 
tion, thirteen regiments, distinguished for their gallantry 
and efficiency in the many battles of that sanguinary strug- 
gle, which came from the same State, and were united into 
two divisions, designated as the Pennsylvania Line. Eight 
of these regiments were placed under the command of 
Wayne. Washington was then encamped on the heights 
of Middlebrook, whence he could look toward the Hudson 
on the one side and the Delaware on the other, should 
Howe show a disposition to move in either direction. He 
needed a general, active, alert and intelligent, with a force 
upon which dependence could be placed to cover the stretch 
of country between West Point and Philadelphia. He sent 
for Wayne and posted him in front, giving him charge of 
the pass on the most important road leading to and from 
the camp. Within three weeks an opportunity arose. A 
detachment of the British army advanced as far as Bruns- 
wick. Wayne made an attack upon these forces on the 
second of May, and after pushing them from one redoubt 
to another, finally drove them within their lines at Amboy. 
He reported to the Board of War : " The conduct of the 
Pennsylvanians the other day in forcing General Grant to 
retire with circumstances of shame and disgrace into the 
very lines of the enemy, has gained them the esteem of his 
excellency," and Benjamin Rush wrote : " The pubHc have 
done you justice for your gallant behavior in checking the 
prowess of Mr. Grant." The brave soldiers who achieved 
this success and were so praised for their efforts had never 
received any uniforms except hunting shirts, which were 



8 Anthony Wayne. 

then worn out, but it is a comfort to know that about this 
time Sally Peters sent to Wayne by wagon, "ajar of pickled 
oysters," and he was enabled to buy three gallons and five 
quarts of Madeira Avine. Graydon, who sought the camp, 
tells us that he " entertained a most sovereign contempt for 
the enemy," but that he, who had been accustomed to 
' appear in exemplary neatness of apparel, was now dressed 
" in a dingy red coat, a black, rusty cravat, and tarnished 
lace hat." Only dire necessity could have' caused the con- 
dition of his attire, for he still maintained that " pride in a 
soldier is a substitute for almost every other virtue," 

At last Howe, who had been waiting in the vain hope 
that Washington would cease clinging to the heights and 
would make the blunder of coming down on to the plain 
to fight him, determined upon an aggressive policy. On 
the twenty-fourth of July, Washington wrote to Wayne, 
*' The fleet have just gone out of the Hook, and as Dela- 
ware appears to be the most probable destination, I desire 
you will leave your brigade, go to Chester and organize the 
militia of Pennsylvania." He gathered them together into 
three brigades, probably three thousand in number, since 
one of them had thirteen hundred and fifty-six men, and 
put them under the command of John Armstrong, the hero 
of the famous battle and victory over the Indians at Kittan- 
ning in 1756. " Time at last sets all things even," and a 
descendant of Armstrong is here to-day, one of the Com- 
missioners charged with the duty of erecting this statue. 
The celebrated Elizabeth Graeme, whom Aunt Gainor, 
in " Hugh Wynne," called " That cat Bessie Ferguson," 
scratched at him after this fashion : " Two suttlers in the 
rear of your division inticed my slave with them, with my 
wagon and two very fine oxen . . . the heat of the 
weather and the violent manner the poor beasts were drove 
occasioned one of them to drop down dead." 

He wanted to see his family, from whom he had long 
been separated — they were now not very distant — but an 
early battle was anticipated, and he had been peremptorily 



Anthony Wayne. 9 

forbidden by "Washington to leave the army and ordered to 
hasten at the head of his division to Wilmington. The 
duties of three generals Avere imposed upon him, and 3^et 
his thought not limited to their performance was busy with 
plans for the campaign. He feared the enemy might reach 
the cit}^ by the fords near the Falls of Schuylkill, and in 
order to prevent such a contingenc}^ proposed to march for- 
ward and give them battle. On the second of September 
he recommended to Washington that three thousand of the 
best armed and disciplined troops make a regular and vig- 
orous assault on one of the flanks of the enemy, trusting to 
surprise for success, and added : " I wish to be of the num- 
ber assigned for this business.'" The suggestion was not 
adopted, but a week later Howe pursued precisely this plan 
at Brandywine and won a decided victory. In that memo- 
rable engagement, Wayne, with his division, was on the left 
upon the east bank of the Brandywine where Chad's Ford 
offered a means of crossing the creek. Throughout the 
entire day he maintained his position, preventing the advance 
of Knyphausen, and occasionally sending detachments to 
the opposite shore, but the right wing under Sullivan and 
Greene had been turned and crushed, and at sunset, find- 
ing that he was becoming enmeshed between Howe on the 
front and the fortunate Cornwallis in the rear, he in good 
order retired. The steadfastness on the left saved the right 
from entire destruction. 

On the eighteenth, Washington, then at Reading Furnace, 
on the French Creek, in Chester County, and expecting to 
cross the Schuylkill River, determined to detach a part of 
his forces to harass the rear of the enemy while he, with 
the main army, should defend the fords. Such a plan neces- 
sarily involved the separation of the army with a river be- 
tween, the close proximity of the harassing force to the 
enemy, and the danger of an attack upon this force by over- 
whelming numbers. That such risks were not unrecognized 
is shown by the letter of Washington written from Pott's 
Grove, September 28rd, before he had learned of the affair 



10 Anthony Wayne. 

at Paoli, recalling the order and saying : " Should we con- 
tinue detached and in a divided state I fear we shall neither 
be able to attack or defend ourselves." However, he selected 
Wayne for this dangerous service, gave him twelve to fifteen, 
hundred men, and wrote to him on the eighteenth : " I must 
call your utmost exertion in fitting yourselves in the best 
manner you can for following and harrassing their rear," 
and saying further : " The army here is so much fatigued 
that it is impossible I should move them this afternoon." 
Evidently anxious, he the same day recites : " Having wrote 
tAvice to you already to move forward." Celerity and secrecy 
were both necessary for the success of such a venture. Un- 
happily these two letters referred to had both fallen into 
the hands of the enemy. This fact alone would have been 
fatal. Wayne, being informed that the British were about 
to march for the Schuylkill on the twenty-first, took a posi- 
tion on the high ground near Paoli, within four miles of the 
enemy, and there he established six pickets and a horse 
picket to patrol the road. At eleven o'clock on the night 
of the twentieth. General Grey, with a much superior force, 
attacked him. He held the ground for an hour and saved 
his artillery, but lost one hundred and fifty men killed and 
wounded and had met with the only defeat of his career. 
A court-martial called at his request found that he deserved 
the " highest honor " as " an active, brave and vigilant of- 
ficer." Rumor ran through the neighborhood that he had 
been killed, that he had been taken prisoner, and that his 
life had been saved through his hurry in putting on his coat 
with the red lining outside. That same night a squad of 
British marched to his house, thrust their bayonets into a 
huge boxwood bush that still grows and thrives in the yard, 
" but behaved with the utmost politeness to the women." 

Not in the least daunted, at the Council of War attended 
by twenty generals, held before Germantown at Penny- 
packer's Mills on the twenty-ninth, he, with four others, 
was in favor of again giving battle. There can be little 
doubt that the spirit he displayed at this time, as upon 



Anthony Wayne, 11 

every other occasion, had its effect upon his companions 
and was influential in bringing about that change to a more 
aggressive policy which led to the results at Germantown, 
Monmouth and Yorktown. " The enemy's being in posses- 
sion of Philadelphia," he said, " is of no more consequence 
than their being in possession of the City of New York or 
Boston." On the eve of Germantown he wrote : <' I have the 
most happy presage of entering Philadelphia at the head of 
troops covered with laurels before the close of the day." 
The value of such vitality to a defeated army at the close 
of a lost campaign cannot be overestimated. 

At Germantown his division encountered and attacked 
the right wing of the British army to the east of the town, 
charged with bayonets, crying out for " Paoli and revenge," 
put the enemy to rout and pursued them for three miles, 
killing with little mercy those who were overcome. On the 
retreat of the Americans, after the check at the Chew House 
and the confusion caused by the fog, he was in the rear and 
with cannon and musketry brought to an end Howe's at- 
tempted pursuit. The British General Hunter, in his his- 
tory, records : " General Wayne commanded the advance. 
. . . Had we not retreated at the time we did, we should 
all have been taken or killed. . . But this was the first 
time we had ever retreated from the Americans," and he 
asserts that Howe, swept by passion, shouted, " For shame 
, . . I never saw you retreat before," but the rattle of 
grape through the limbs of a chestnut tree under which he 
stood convinced him, also, of the necessity. Wayne's theory 
that the liberty of America would be secured when the 
British were taught respect upon the field of battle, was 
taking a concrete form. At eight o'clock that night, ap- 
parently unwearied by the great exertions of the day, he 
wrote to Washington, hoping for " their total defeat the 
next tryal, which I wioh to see brought to issue the soonest 
possible." Two days later he wrote from Pennypacker's 
Mills a long letter to his wife, as remarkable as it was 
characteristic. He gave in detail the military movements of 



12 Anthony Wayne. 

the battle, which evidently absorbed his thought. There was, 
nevertheless, one series of incidents, of minor importance 
no doubt to him if not to her, which had been overlooked. 
They suddenly occurred to him as he closed. " I had for- 
gotten to mention that my roan horse was killed under me 
within a few yards of the enemy's front, . . . and my left 
foot a little bruised by one of their cannon shot. ... I 
had a slight touch on my left hand. ... It was a glor- 
ious day." 

On the twenty-seventh of October, in response to a query 
from Washington as to whether it would be prudent to at- 
tempt to dislodge the enemy, he recommended that an im- 
mediate attack be made, and he advanced as reasons for his 
opinion that the ground was not disadvantageous, that the 
shipping in the river could assist, that in the event of failure 
they had a stretch of open country to which to retire, that 
if no attempt were made the forts on the Delaware must fall, 
aifording the enemy comfortable quarters, and finally that 
the Americans would be forced from the field, or lose more 
b}^ sickness and desertion in a naked, discontented army 
than in an action. The subsequent evacuation of Fort 
Mifflin, with loss of control of the Delaware, and the ex- 
periences at Valley Forge seemed to justify at least some 
of his conclusions. Fort Mifflin on the west bank of the 
Delaware had been besieged for six weeks, the British had 
erected works on Province Island, near enough to threaten 
the fort, when Wayne was ordered with his division and the 
corps of Morgan to "storm the enemy's lines, spike their 
cannon, and ruin their works." Wayne gladly undertook 
the difficult and dangerous task, but the day before the efft^rt 
was to have been made the fort was abandoned. Another 
Council of War was held November the twenty-fourth and 
the same question broached. Wayne was decided in his 
view that the credit of the army, the safety of the country, 
the honor of American arms, the approach of winter, and 
the depreciation of the currency made it necessary to give 
battle to the enemy, and he advised that the army march 



Anthony Wayne. 13 

the next morning to the upper end of Germantown. He 
admitted the hazard and the undoubted loss of hfe, but 
believed that the bold course would prove to be the most 
eifective. 

His life at Valley Forge, where his division occupied the 
centre of the outer line, was an unceasing struggle to secure 
recruits and sufficient arms to equip and clothing to cover 
his soldiers. JSTearly all of the deaths and desertions, he 
says, were due to nakedness and dirt. He did not want 
rifles, but muskets mth bayonets, believing that the mere 
consciousness of the possession of a bayonet gave a sense of 
security, and that without being used it was an element of 
safety. Provisions grew to be scarce and he was sent with 
five hundred and fifty men to the agricultural regions of 
Few Jersey to collect cattle for the army. On one occasion 
he sent to the camp one hundred and fifty cattle and thirty 
horses. With the British, who crossed the Delaware from 
Philadelphia upon a like errand, he, and Count Pulaski at 
the head of fifty horse, had a combat of some severity in 
the neighborhood of Haddonfield, and another at Cooper's 
Ferry. ISTot only did he succeed in feeding the army, but 
his energetic movements became the subject of a ribald 
poem, entitled, " The Cow Chase," written by John Andre, 
the vivacious adjutant general of the British army, in which 
to some extent the author foreshadowed his own unhappy 
fate, should he fall into the hands of Wayne, 

On the return of Wayne to the camp at Valley Forge he, on 
the twenty-first of April, 1778, again urged upon Washing- 
ton that " many reasons, in my humble opinion, both politi- 
cal and prudential, point to the expediency of putting the 
enemy on the defensive." He recommended making an 
effort against Howe or ISTew York, saying, " Whatever part 
may be assigned to me, I shall alwaj-s, and at all times, be 
ready to serve you." Ere long his wish was gratified. The 
British, fearing a blockade of the Delaware River by the 
French fleet, were about to evacuate Philadelphia. Again 
Washington called a Council of War. The advice of Wayne 



14 Anthony Wayne. 

was " that the whole of the army be put in motion the soon- 
est possible for some of the ferries on the Delaware above 
Trent Town, so as to be ready to act as soon as the enemy's 
movement shall be ascertained," and then if the North 
River should prove to be their objective point " take the 
first favorable opportunity to make a vigorous and serious 
attack." Manifestly his earnestness of purpose was having 
its effect, since this was the course a few days afterward 
pursued. 

At another Council of War held on the twenty-fourth of 
June, Wayne and Cadwalader, the two Pennsylvanians 
alone, supported to some extent by Lafayette and Greene, 
declared in favor of active and aggressive measures. On 
this occasion Wayne had his way, and two days afterward 
the two armies were within a few miles of each other and 
about to come into contact. Washington determined to 
attack the rear guard of the enemy, which was protecting 
the baggage train, and sent General Charles Lee, with five 
thousand men, among whom was Wayne, five miles in 
advance with this purpose in view. Lee ordered Wayne, 
telling him that his was the post of honor, to lead the ad- 
vance, and with seven hundred men to assail the left rear 
of the British. Before, however, this movement could be 
accomplished, they assumed the aggressive. A charge by 
Simcoe's Rangers upon Butler's Pennsylvania regiment 
was repulsed, but reenforcements in great numbers came to 
their assistance. At this time, while Wayne was engaged 
in a desperate struggle, the heart of Lee failed him, and he 
marched his men not forward in support, but about face to 
the rear. His excuse was that the temerity of Wayne had 
brought upon him " the whole flower of the British Army, 
Grenadiers, Light Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery, amount- 
ing in all to seven thousand men." Washington, meeting- 
Lee in retreat, in anger assumed command and ordered 
Wayne, who to avoid capture had been compelled to follow, 
to take Craig's Third Pennsylvania, Irvine's Seventh Penn- 
sylvania, Stewart's Thirteenth Pennsylvania, a Maryland 



Anthony Wayne. 15 

regiment and a regiment from Virginia and check the 
pursuit. Holding a position in an orchard, between two 
hills near the parsonage of Monmouth, they repelled two 
determined onsets and gained time for the occupation ot 
the high ground by the forces sent to the front by Wash- 
ington. Finally Colonel Henry Monckton, brother of Lord 
Galway, after a brief speech appealing to the pride, and 
calling attention to the brilHant services of the British 
Guards, led them forward in a bayonet charge, with im- 
petuous fury, against the troops of Wayne. They were 
unable to withstand the withering fire they encountered 
and, driven back in confusion, left the dead body of the 
Colonel on the field. Other efforts were continued for 
more than an hour, but in vain. The elite of the British 
Army and the ragged Continentals from the huts of Valley 
Forge had met upon the plains of Monmouth and the fame 
of the deeds of Anthony Wayne was nevermore to fade 
from the memories of men. "Pennsylvania showed the 
road to victory" was the expression of what was probably 
his keenest gratification. "I cannot forbear mentioning 
Brigadier General Wayne, whose conduct and bravery 
through the whole action deserves particular commenda- 
tion," was the stately and subdued comment of George 
Washington. Later a duel with Lee, which these events 
threatened, was happily averted. 

After the exertions of Monmouth there was a long lull 
in military activities. The British held possession of New 
York, and the army of Washington, stretched across New 
Jersey, kept watch upon their movements. Throughout 
this period of inaction the difliculties of the Continental 
Army in maintaining the numbers of the rank and file, in 
supplying them with pay, arms, clothing and provisions, in 
arranging the grades of the ofiicers, were serious and so 
continuous as to become chronic. On the fifth of October, 
1778, Wayne wrote to Robert Morris: ''By the first of 
January we shall have more Continental troops in the field 
than any other State in the whole Confederacy, but not as 



16 Anthony Wayne. 

many general officers." At this time Pennsylvania had 
two brigades with the main army, three hundred men with 
Colonel Butler on the Mohawk, three hundred men with 
Colonel Brodhead at Pittsburg, and a regiment with Colonel 
Hartley at Sunbury. The service, according to Wayne, 
promised nothing " but indigence and want." The pay 
had become a mere vox et praeterea nihil. The Clothier 
General of the army refused to furnish them with clothing, 
giving as a reason that, unlike the other States, they had 
their own State Clothier. When his men burned some 
fences to keep themselves warm, Scamell, the aide to Lord 
Stirling, proceeded to read him a lecture. " In case he (the 
Major General) is obliged to repeat the orders again, he 
shall be under the disagreeable necessity of pointing out 
the Pennsylvania troops in particular," said Scamell in a 
reflected lordly fashion. Wayne, entirely able to hold his 
own, and ever ready to support his troops, replied : "During 
the very severe storm from Christmas to ISTew Year's, whilst 
our people lay without any cover except their old tents, and 
when the drifting of snow prevented the green wood from 
taking fire," yes, they burned some rails, but fifty men had 
first been frostbitten. The other troops " were either cooped 
in huts or cantoned in houses. . . It is not new to the 
Pennsylvanians to be taken notice of in general orders." 
It was always his efifort to keep them " well and comfort- 
able," and no commander ever had more trustful and devoted 
followers. 

When Doctor Jones sent to him a bear skin, he was de- 
lighted. Occasionally his thoughts wandered toward his 
home. To Polly he sent ''A tierce of beer, some rock fish and 
oysters with a little good fresh beef," saying, " I would ad- 
vise you to make immediate use of the fish." Again he 
wrote to her, " I am not a little anxious about the education 
of our girl and boy. It is full time that Peggy should be 
put to the dancing school. How does she improve in her 
writing and reading ? Does Isaac take learning freely ? 
Has he become fond of school ?" 



Anthony Wayne. lY 

Though Wayne had long with the greatest measure of 
success commanded a division, his rank and pay were only 
those of a brigadier, and he never throughout the Revolu- 
tion received the advancement to which his services were 
entitled. Skill in securing recognition and compensation is 
an art in itself often quite apart from those qualities which 
accomplish great achievements. The man who is really 
intent upon his work often forgets the reward. And now 
his superior, St, Clair, that unfortunate general who had 
surrendered Ticonderoga, and who for some occult reason 
appears to have ever been a favorite with those in authority, 
came to take charge of the Pennsylvania hue, Wayne, after 
having been promised command of the Light Lifantry soon 
to be organized, and bearing with him the w^ritten and eager 
statement of his colonels, Harmar, Stewart and the rest, 
that his recent effort had "riveted the hearts of all ranks 
more iirmly" to him and had rendered his " name more dear 
to the whole line," returned to Pennsylvania. His rest was 
not for long, Washington pondered over the possibilities of 
a desperate deed of " derring-doe" requiring military intelli- 
gence and personal courage of the highest character, and in 
its consideration in all probability weighed the qualities of 
every general then in the field Avith him. One day, June 
24th, 1779, Wayne was in Philadelphia on his way to greet 
his family at Easttown, when a post rider gave him a des- 
patch from Washington with the suggestive words :" I re- 
quest that you join the army as soon as you can," Polly 
must forego the greeting and be left to her loneliness, and 
it meant a long farewell. 

Stony Point, a rugged promontory covered with rock and 
wood, extending into the Hudson River for half a mile from 
the western shore Hne and rising to a height of one hundred 
and fifty feet, stood " like a solitary sentinel, ever keeping 
watch and ward over the gateway of the Highlands. Bend- 
mg around its western base, and separating it from the 
mainland, a marsh sometimes to the depth of two feet crept 
from an entrance in the river to the north to an outlet in 



18 Anthony Wayne. 

the river to the south. An island fortress hkened often in 
its strength and conformation to Gibraltar, it seemed to 
present insurmountable obstacles to any attacking force and 
with quiet and sardonic frown to threaten destruction. Upon 
the summit the British had erected a series of redoubts and 
had placed seven or eight disconnected batteries, while im- 
mediately below them an abattis extended the entire length 
of the crest. Within this fortification were four companies 
of the Seventeenth Regiment of Infantry, one company of 
American tories and a detachment of the Royal Artillery. 
About one-third of the way down the hill from the summit 
ran a second line of abattis, supported by three redoubts, on 
which were brass twelve-pound cannon defended by two 
companies of the Seventeenth Regiment and two companies 
of Grenadiers. At the foot of the hill near the morass were 
five pickets, and the British vessels of war, which rode in the 
river, were able to sweep with their guns the low ground of 
the approaches. Four brass and four iron cannon, one 
howitzer and five mortars, amply supplied with ammunition, 
were at the service of the garrison, which consisted of over 
six hundred of the best disciplined and most trustworthy 
troops of the British army," commanded by a capable and 
gallant officer. At half after eleven o'clock on the night of 
July 15th, 1779, thirteen hundred and fifty men with bay- 
onets fixed, and likewise " fresh shaved and well powdered," 
were waiting with Anthony Wayne on the farther side of 
the marsh to storm this formidable fortification. It was a 
most difi&cult undertaking, and the entire responsibility for 
the plan to be pursued, and the time and manner of carrying 
it out, rested upon Wayne. " So soon as you have fixed 
your plan and the time of execution I shall be obliged to 
you to give me notice," Washington wrote to him on the 
tenth of July, to which Wayne replied on the fourteenth, "I 
shall do myself the honor to enclose you the plan and dis- 
position to-morrow." He determined upon an assault by 
two columns, one on the right and one on the left, each to 
consist of one hundred and fifty men with arms unloaded, 



Anthony Wayne. 19 

depending solely upon their bayonets, each preceded at the 
distance of sixty feet by a " forlorn hope," consisting of an 
officer and twenty men, while a force in the centre were to 
attract attention by a fire of musketry, but to make only a 
simulated attack. Never in the whole history of mankind 
has there occurred a situation which gives more forcibly the 
impression of absolute solemnity — the silence — the stern 
resolution of the musket grip — the morass in front, with its 
hidden uncertainties — the dangers and hopes that lay beyond 
on the threatening mount, and the deep darkness of the 
midnight. Wayne made his preparations for death. At 
eleven o'clock he sent certain roughly drawn papers to his 
dearest friend. " This will not meet your eye until the 
writer is no more. ... I know that friendship will 
induce you to attend to the education of my little son and 
daughter. I fear that their mother will not survive this 
stroke. Do go to her. ... I am called to sup, but 
where to breakfast, either within the enemy's lines in tri- 
umph or in the other world," were some of the utterances 
wrung from a burdened soul. On the way up the mount, 
iust beyond the first abattis, he was struck by a ball which 
cut a gash two inches in length across his face and head, 
and felled him senseless to the ground. It was no light 
wound. Long afterward he was weak from the loss of 
blood which streamed over him. Three weeks later his 
mental faculties were still benumbed. Six weeks later it 
was yet unhealed. As soon as he regained consciousness 
he called aloud : " Lead me forward. . . Let me die in 
the fort," but continued to direct the movements with the 
point of his spear. In a few moments the words which he 
had adopted as a signal, " The Fort's our own," rang over 
the parapet ; at two o'clock in the morning Wayne sent a 
despatch to Washington almost as laconic as the message 
of Ceesar : " The fort and garrison, -with Colonel Johnston, 
are ours. Our officers and men behaved like men deter- 
mined to be free"; of the twenty-one men in the "forlorn 
hope" led by Lieutenant James Gibbons, of Philadelphia, 



20 Anthony Wayne. 

seventeen had been shot; and a valorous feat of arms, un- 
equalled in American annals, either before or since, ending 
in brilliant success, had caught the attention of the entire 
world to hold it forevermore. 

At that time the laws of war permitted a garrison taken 
by storm to be put to the sword, and memory recalls more 
than one British victory in that and later wars stained with 
such cruelty. It is a great glory of Stony Point that no 
poor wretch cried for mercy in vain, and that all who sub- 
mitted were saved. As an achievement more important 
than the capture of a stronghold and the exhibition of 
valor and military skill was the fact that it created confi 
dence and selt-respect, and aroused a sense of state and 
national pride, public virtues as much needed then as they 
are to-day. The calm Washington in a despatch to Con- 
gress said that the conduct of Wayne " through the whole 
of this arduous enterprise merits the warmest approbation," 
and the more impulsive Greene declared that the event 
would " immortalize General Wayne" as it would do honor 
to the first general in Europe. Girard, the French minis- 
ter, wrote : ''The most rare qualities were found united;" 
John Jay, " You have nobly reaped laurels in the cause of 
your country and in the fields of danger and death;" Sharp 
Delaney, "At a Town Meeting yesterday you had all our 
hats and hands in repeated acclamation ;" Benjamin Rush, 
" Our streets for many days rung with nothing but the name 
of General Wayne;" Colonel Spotswood, of Virginia, "The 
greatest stroke that has been struck this war;" General 
Adam Stephens, "You have added dignity to the American 
arms and acquired immortal renown;" Colonel Sherman, 
that his name would " be coeval with the annals of Ameri- 
can history;" Lafayette, that it was a "Glorious affair;" 
Steuben, " This gallant action would fix the character of 
the commanding officer in any part of the world;" General 
Lee, " I do most sincerely declare that your action in the 
assault on Stony Point is not only the most brilliant in my 
opinion through the whole course of this war on either side, 



Anthony Wayne. 21 

but that it is one of the most brilliant I am acquainted with 
in histor}^," and the English commodore, George Collier, 
that " The rebels had made the attack with a bravery they 
never before exhibited and they showed at the moment a 
generosity and clemency which during the course of the 
rebellion had no parallel." The poet sang: 

"Each soldier darts amain 
And every youth with ardor burns 
To emulate our Wayne." 

The Assembly of Pennsylvania and the Supreme Execu- 
tive Council passed resolutions thanking Wayne and the 
Pennsylvania line for "the honor they have reflected on 
the State to which they belong," and Congress, praising his 
" brave, prudent and soldier like conduct," ordered a gold 
medal to be presented to him, to be made in France under 
the supervision of Dr. Franklin. In the very nature of 
things such an event could not occur without producing an 
efiect upon the relations of Wayne to the other officers of 
the army, in some instances enhancing their esteem and in 
others, it is to be feared, arousing their envy, and without 
influencing his personal fortunes. He turned sharply upon 
Return Jonathan Meigs, of Connecticut, with : " I don't 
wish to incur any gentleman's displeasure. I put up with 
no man's insults." Twice within the next six weeks Wash- 
ington dined with him and referring to a recent incident in 
the conduct of military aft'airs, paid him this high compli- 
ment: " I had resolved to attempt the same enterprise, to 
be executed in the same manner you mention." The minds 
of the two men had come to be in an entire accord. About 
the same time he ordered : " One pair of elegant gold epau- 
lets, superfine bufi:' sufiicient to face two uniform coats, with 
hair and silk, four dozen best yellow gilt coat buttons, plain 
and buft' color lining suitable to the facing of one coat." 

There was an officer in the army holding the high rank 
of a major general for whom Wayne had long held an un- 
concealed hostility, and whose conduct he viewed with sus- 



22 Anthony Wayne. 

picion. " I ever entertained the most despicable opinion 
of his abilities." "He had neither tortitude or personal 
courage other than what the bowl or glass supplied," were 
the comments of Wayne. At Morristown the ofHcers of 
the Pennsylvania line had refused to serve under his 
command. Atter this officer, Benedict Arnold, of Con- 
necticut, had in 1780 planned to give possession of West 
Point to the enemy and the complot with Clinton had been 
discovered, while it was still uncertain how far the treason 
had extended and whether it might not be successful, Wash- 
ington ordered the Pennsylvania Line to the place of danger 
and gave them charge of that post. The first and second 
brigades marched from Tappan at the instant that the order 
came, leaving their tents standing, without taking time to 
call in their guards and detachments, and hastened to seize 
the pass at Smith's White House, where they could dispute 
the advance of the enemy or retire to West Point as the 
situation demanded. Wayne, with the rest of the line, 
taking care to see that no more of the enemy passed up the 
river, seized the pass at Storms, from which a road in their 
rear ran to West Point, over which he could move rapidly 
and send the artillery and baggage. The order was re- 
ceived at one o'clock in the morning. At two they were 
on the march. It was a dark night, but without a halt 
they pushed ahead over the mountains " sixteen miles in 
four hours," and by sunrise were holding the passes. 
Washington in joyful surprise ejaculating " All is safe 
and I again am happy," went to bed after a long and 
uneasy watch 

A few months later occurred that emeute which the 
writers of books have strangely been pleased to call " the 
revolt of the Pennsylvania line." In the latter part of 1780 
the line had under arms two thousand and five men and 
they constituted, according to Dr. Stille, as nearly as may 
be, two-thirds of the entire army. According to an esti- 
mate of Washington, they were one-third of his forces, and 
he said the army was " dwindling into nothing," and that 



Anthony Wayne, 23 

the officers, as well as the men, were renouncing the ser- 
vice. Within nine months one hundred and sixty-eight 
officers, including, however, only one from Pennsylvania, 
had resigned. It is altogether plain that in one way or 
another, for some reason about which it is unnecessary to 
inquire, in the main the troops from the other colonies had 
returned to their homes. 

It was of the utmost importance for the success of the 
Continental cause that the men then in the service should 
be retained, even if in doing so the timbers of the ship had 
to be strained. The men in the line had been enlisted for 
" three years, or daring the war." There can be but very 
little doubt as to the meaning of this contract. The only 
reasonable construction is that they were to remain at most 
for the three years, but if the war should end during that 
period, the government, having no longer use for their 
services, should be at liberty to discharge them. As it 
happened, the war lasted beyond the three years and it 
suited the necessities of the Government to act upon the 
assumption that " during the war" meant a time without 
limit. A large proportion of these men had been enlisted 
in 1776 and 1777, and therefore their terms of service had 
long expired and they were being held without warrant of 
law. Moreover, cold weather had come upon them, and 
in the language of Wayne, " the distressed situation of the 
soldiers for want of clothing beggars all description." They 
had no money for their families and Washington wrote that 
there had been a " total want of pay for nearly twelve 
months." No gentle remedy would have served any pur- 
pose in such a situation. There arose among them a hero 
with the plebeian name of William Bowser, but imbued 
with the spirit that won the war of the Revolution, a ser- 
geant of the Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment. With every 
probability of being shot to death and covered with igno- 
miny, with the nicest propriety of conduct, with a certain 
rude eloquence, he confronted Anthony Wayne, George 
Washington, the Pennsylvania Supreme Executive Coun- 



24 Anthony Wayne. 

cil, and the Continental Congress. He was absolutely right 
as to his contentions, and musket in hand, he gained his 
cause by force, over the heads of them all, and brought 
about a relief from the difficulties that encompassed them. 
About nine o'clock in the night of the first of January, 
1781, the line arose eji masse, formed on parade with their 
arms and without their ofiicers, took possession of the pro- 
visions and ammunition, seized six pieces of artillery, took 
the horses from the stables, swept the ground with round 
shot and grape, and proposed to march to Philadelphia and 
see to it that their grievances were redressed. Some of the 
officers who tried to stem the torrent were killed. Some 
of the men were stricken with swords and espontoons and 
their bodies trampled beneath the hoofs of the horses. 
Then there were conferences. Joseph Reed, President of 
Pennsylvania, and the Congress began to stir themselves 
and to make strenuous efforts to meet the troubles of the 
situation. For two weeks the men kept up a perfect disci- 
pline and permitted Wayne, with Colonels Butler and 
Stewart, to come and go among them. Sir Henry Clinton 
sent two emissaries to them -wdth a written proposition to 
afford them protection, to pay in gold all the arrears of 
wages due from the Congress, and to exempt them from all 
military service. . It was no doubt a tempting offer. It 
would have ended the war, and the Colonies would have 
remained dependencies. These patriots were not made of 
such stuff. They at once handed over to Washington the 
British agents, who were on the twelfth promptly hanged. 
Reed had the indelicacy to offer a reward in money, which 
Bowser declined because the spies had been surrendered 
" for the zeal and love of our country." In the end the 
Government discharged twelve hundred and fifty men whose 
terms had expired, thus admitting its delinquency, gave to 
each poor fellow a pair of shoes, an overall and a shirt, and 
promised that the " arrearages of pay (were) to be made up 
as soon as circumstances will admit." The greater number 
of the men willingly reenlisted and Israel went back to its 



Anthony Wayne. 25 

tents. " The patli we tread is justice and our footsteps 
founded upon honor," announced Sergeant Bowser. 

The war now drifted to the southward and Wayne with 
eight hundred of the Pennsylvania line appeared in Vir- 
ginia. Washington ordered the line to be transferred to 
the Southern Army, and wishing a brigadier to go with the 
first detachment so as to be ready to form the whole, wrote 
to Wayne: "This duty of course devolves upon you." 
Lafayette, then in Virginia, warmly expressed his gratifi- 
cation and Greene did not hesitate to declare : " You must 
know you are the Idle [Idol] of the legion." 

A tragedy preceded the movement of the troops into the 
campaign. As has been shown, they had been promised 
that the arrearages of their wages would be paid to them. 
The money came while they were in York, in Pennsylvania, 
but it was the paper of the Continental Congress. Accord- 
ing to Wayne this paper was then worth about one-seventh 
of its face value, and the people of the neighborhood de- 
clined to accept it in exchange for what they had to sell. 
On the twenty-fourth of May a few men on the right of 
each regiment, when formed in line, called out that they 
wanted real, and not ideal, money," and that " they were 
no longer to be trifled with." These men were ordered to 
retire to their tents, and they refused to go. The officers, 
who had come prepared, promptly knocked them down and 
put them in confinement, a court-martial was ordered on 
the spot, the trial proceeded before the soldiers paraded 
under arms, and in the course of a few hours the accused 
were convicted of mutiny and shot. Says Wayne : " Whether 
by design or accident the particular friends and messmates 
of the culprits were their executioners." Our patriotic fore- 
fathers of the Revolutionary War were not altogether gentle 
and mild-mannered persons. To Polly, whose tender heart 
must have been moved by the painful recital, he explained : 
"I was obliged to make an exemplary punishment, which 
will have a very happy effect." But we find more relief in 
a letter he wrote about the same time to Nicholson, the 



26 Anthony Wayne. 

paymaster : " My feelings will not permit me to see the 
widows and orphans of brave and worthy soldiers who have 
fought, bled and died under my own eye, deprived of those 
rights they are so justly entitled to." His careless servant 
Philip lost the greater part of his table linen and napkins; his 
carriage and its horses, his baggage wagon with its four horses, 
a driver and four soldiers were at the plantation of Colonel 
Simm; " But hark, the ear piercing fife, the spirit stirring 
drum, and all the pomp and glorious circumstance of war," 
summoned him to horse, and away they hurried to Vir- 
ginia, crossing the Potomac with artillery and baggage upon 
four little boats, one of which sank, drowning a few men, 
and reaching Leesburg, a distance of thirty miles, in two 
days. On another day, when there was no river to cross, 
they marched twenty-two miles. As had grown to become 
customary, in the Virginia campaign as elsewhere, Wayne 
went to the front. On the twenty-fifth of June Lafiiyette 
wrote : " Having given you the command of our advanced 
corps, consisting of Butler's advance and your Pennsylva- 
nians, I request you to dispose of them in the best way you 
think proper," 

Cornwallis had his headquarters at Portsmouth and held 
control of the peninsula between the York and the James 
rivers, while Lafayette, whose force was much inferior, 
marched hither and* yon in an effort to prevent the British 
detachments from getting supplies and if possible to cut 
them off and effect their capture. On the sixth of July 
what he thought to be the coveted opportunity arose. In- 
formation came that Cornwallis, in moving down the James 
River, had left his rear guard on the eastern bank near 
Green Spring, and that his army was divided with a river 
between. Lafayette ordered Wayne, with eight hundred 
men, nearly all of tliem from Pennsylvania, and three field 
pieces, to make an attack upon this rear guard. After 
crossing a swamp by means of a causeway, and coming 
upon the enemy, they discovered too late that the informa- 
tion was erroneous, and that they were confronted by the 



Anthony Wayne. 27 

whole British array of four thousand men under command 
of Cornwallis himself The lion, awakened from his sleep, 
sprang forward in a dangerous mood and soon flanking 
parties began to envelope Wayne upon both sides. Here 
was a serious problem — a swamp in the rear, an enemy on 
the front, and overwhelming forces closing around. What 
was to be done ? Lafayette hurried off an aide to bring up 
his army, but they were five miles away, and what might 
not be accomplished while ten miles of country were being 
traversed ? To retreat was to be utterly lost. To stand 
still meant ultimate capture. Situations such as these, re- 
quiring the capacity to think accurately in the midst of 
unexpected crises, which Hooker was unable to do at Chan- 
cellorsville, and the character bravely and vigorously to act 
upon the conclusions reached, in which Lee failed at Mon- 
mouth, furnish the real test of military ability. Wayne 
boldly ordered a charge, the troops had entire confidence 
in his leadership, and he succeeded. Cornwallis, with an 
estimated loss of three hundred in killed and wounded, re- 
tired toward Portsmouth to meet his now threatened fate. 
Of the Americans one hundred and twenty were killed or 
wounded. Lafayette in general orders proclaimed : " The 
general is happy in acknowledging the spirit of the detach- 
ment commanded by General Wayne in their engagement 
with the total of the British Army. . . . The conduct 
of the Pennsylvania field and other officers are new 
instances of their gallantry and talents." Greene, who 
had a somewhat undue respect for the British general, 
wrote : "Be a little careful and tread softly, for depend 
upon it you have a modern Hannibal to deal with in the 
person of Cornwallis. Oh, that I had had you with me a 
few days ago." 

Washington placidly wrote: "I cannot but feel myself 
interested in the welfare of those to whose gallant conduct 
I have so often been a witness," while the more youthful 
and mercurial Light Horse Harry Lee could not restrain 
his enthusiasm, almost shouting: " I feel the highest joy in 



28 Anthony Wayne. 

knowing that my dear friend and his gallant corps distin- 
guished themselves so gloriously." 

The wounded soldiers lacked hospital accommodations 
and supplies. Wayne ordered them to be furnished, and if 
there should be trouble about the payment, " place it to my 
account." This was not the first time he assumed indi- 
vidual pecuniary responsibility for the relief of his men and 
the welfare of the cause. In 1777, when there was great 
distress for w^ant of provisions, he sent ten head of cattle to 
the army from his own farm and had not been paid for them 
as late as 1780. 

The Continental army and the French fleet were about 
to concentrate and close in around Cornwallis, and in keep- 
ing him occupied and preventing the Virginia raids the 
army of Lafayette had borne its part in bringing about the 
result. On one occasion Wayne made, as he says, a push 
for Tarleton at Amelia, but the doughty Colonel had pre- 
cipitately retreated. It seems almost a pity that they could 
not have come together. In August for six days during a 
period of two weeks, the soldiers of Wayne had been "with- 
out anything to eat or drink except new Indian corn and 
water. . . . Neither salt, spirits, bacon or flour," but 
such inconvenience did not dampen their ardor. For a 
time Wayne had been at " Westover," and he impressed 
his hostess, the courtly Mrs. Byrd, who wrote: "I shall 
ever retain the highest sense of your politeness and human- 
ity, and take every opportunity of testifying my gratitude." 
The part he took in holding Cornwallis was important. On 
August the thirty-first, Lafa^^ette thought that if Cornwallis 
did not that night cross to the south of the James, twenty- 
five ships of the Comte de Grasse having been sighted, he 
would have to stand a siege. The Marquis sent Wayne 
over the river and wrote, " now that you are over, I am 
pretty easy." Wayne posted his men at Cobham on the 
south side of the James, opposite to Cornwallis, with nothing 
but the river between them, selected a location on James 
Island for three thousand of the French, who had landed 



Anthony Wayne. 29 

too far below to be effective in preventing the possible re- 
treat of Cornwallis, and then at eight o'clock in the night 
mounted his horse and rode ten miles to hold a conference 
with Lafayette, who had sent an express rider to point out 
the way. About ten o'clock he arrived at the camp, where- 
upon the sentry upon guard shot him. He had given the 
password, but the unfortunate guard, whose mind was 
intent upon the proximity of the British, made a mistake. 
In the midst of the alarm created, Wayne had great diffi- 
culty in preventing the whole squad from firing at him. 
The ball struck in the middle of the thigh, gra>^ed the bone, 
and lodged on the other side. Instantaneously he felt a 
severe pain in the foot which he called the gout. For two 
weeks he was out of service and at the end of that time 
could only move around in a carriage. For the guard he 
had only sympathy, and he called him a " poor fellow," but 
he vented his indignation upon Peters: "Your damned 
commissary of military plays false. He has put too little 
powder in the musket cartridges. ... If the damned 
cartridge had a sufficiency of powder the ball would have 
gone quite through in place of lodging." In view of the 
pain and the patriotism we may surely, like the recording 
angel, pardon the profanity. That he accurately understood 
the surrounding conditions and that his judgment as to the 
outcome was sound, appears from a letter of September the 
twelfth, wherein he says : " We have the most glorious cer- 
tainty of very soon obliging Lord Cornwallis with all his 
army to surrender prisoners of war." What a contrast 
these thoughts present to those of another letter written on 
the same day to his httle daughter: "If you have not 
already begun your French I wish you to request that lady 
to put you to it as soon as possible. . . . Music, dancing, 
drawing. . . . Apropos have you determined to hold 
your head up ?" 

One of the final attacks at Yorktown was supported by 
two battalions of Pennsylvania troops and the second par- 
allel of the approaching works of the besiegers they and 



30 Anthony Wayne. 

the Maryland troops completed. When Cornwallis on the 
nineteenth surrendered, the guards for one of his fortifica- 
tions were selected from the French, and for the other from 
the Pennsylvania and Maryland troops. Since the French 
had a fleet of thirty-seven vessels of war, and an army twice 
as numerous as that of the Colonies, "Wayne was sufliciently 
just to concede that the victory was not altogether due "to 
the exertions of America." 

Soon after the surrender an incident occurred which 
shows what personal manliness and appreciation of the duty 
of a soldier actuated Wa3me in his conduct. He was suf- 
fering from the effects of his recent wound and asked for 
a short leave of absence. Washington, who was himself 
about to go north to Philadelphia, where he remained 
until March, but whose purpose was to send Wayne to the 
South where the war still lingered, gave a not very cheer- 
ful assent. Whereupon Wayne wrote: "As a friend I told 
you that my feehngs were hurt. As a soldier I am always 
ready to submit to difficulties. . . . Your Excellency 
puts it upon a ground which prevents me from accepting," 
and getting into a carriage, with such rapidity of progress 
as was practicable, he made his way to Greene in South 
Carolina along with the Pennsylvania line. 

Greene sent him to Georgia, and much to his regret, 
without his old troops. However, he had about four hun- 
dred dragoons, one hundred and seventy infantry, a detach- 
ment of field artillery, and such mihtia as could be raised 
from time to time. The British had possession of Savannah 
with thirteen hundred regulars, five hundred militia, and 
an indefinite number of refugees and Creek and Cherokee 
Indians. The people of Georgia were so impoverished that 
the Legislature authorized the Governor to seize ten negroes 
and sell them in order to secure his salary. The country 
below the Briar Creek between the Ogeechee and Savannah 
rivers had become a complete desert. The Whigs and 
Tories maintained a partisan warfare of the most desperate 
character, in which mercy to prisoners was neither expected 



Anthony Wayne. 31 

nor shown. Into this caldron Wayne plunged, and for the 
first time in his career he determined for himself the features 
of a campaign. It is interesting to observe what was ex- 
pected of him and what were the facilities afforded him for 
its accomplishment. At the outset Greene sounded this 
note of warning: "Your reputation depends more on avert- 
ing a misfortune than on achieving something very great. 
Brilliant actions may fade, but prudent conduct never can. 
Your reputation can receive no additional lustre from cour- 
age, while prudential conduct will render it complete," and 
when it came to the methods to be pursued his suggestions 
were equally definite and helpful: " I think you should try 
to hold out encouragement to the Tories to abandon the 
enemy's interest and though you cannot promise positively 
to pardon them you may promise to do all in your power 
to procure it." In brief, Greene had nothing to offer and 
his utmost hope was that no disaster should occur. Wayne 
in the early part of January, 1782, threw up intrenchments 
at a point on the Savannah River twenty-five miles above 
the city of Savannah and established a line across to the 
Ogeechee, intended to separate the British from their Indian 
allies and to cut off' the sources of supplies. Immediately 
things began to move and the prospect to brighten. Wayne 
drafted a proclamation to be issued by the Governor of 
Georgia offering full pardon to the Tories. At the end of 
six weeks not an officer or soldier had had an opportunity 
to remove his clothing, but by the twenty-sixth of January 
the British had been driven from three of their outposts. 
The Choctaws, on their way to Savannah, January the 
thirtieth, were intercepted, twenty-six warriors, six white 
men and ninety-three pack-horses captured, and while host- 
ages were held the chiefs were sent back to their tribe with 
messages of friendliness and peace. By the middle of 
February the British were confined to the city. On the 
last day of the same month he burned a lot of British 
forage within half a mile of Savannah. On one occasion he 
had a personal rencontre with a Creek chief, in which the 



32 Anthony Wayne. 

chief killed his horse, and he cut down the Indian with his 
sword. On the twenty-first of April he heard again from 
Greene, who wrote : "General Barnwell tells me you talk 
of taking position nearer the enemy. It is not my wish 
you should," to which Wayne, who held a diiferent view, 
replied : "I never had an idea of taking a position within 
striking distance, but such a one as would tend to circum- 
scribe the enemy without committing myself. Such a posi- 
tion is about six miles in our front, and if I am joined by a 
corps of gentlemen under Colonel Clarke agreeable to 
promise, I shall take it." The next day Greene wrote that 
there was no ammunition with which to meet the demands 
of Wayne, that he had no arms to send, that the cartouche- 
boxes were all in use, and ordering that Captain Gill be 
withdrawn to join his own army. With the order recalling 
Gill, Wayne instantly and reluctantly complied. 

On the twenty-first of May the Seventh Regiment of 
British Infantry with a force of Cavalry, Hessians, Choctaw 
Indians and Tories moved out to the distance of four miles 
from Savannah. In the night Wayne crossed the swamp, 
which was thought to be a protection, attacked and routed 
them with great loss, made a number of captures, including 
Lieutenant Colonel Douglass and thirty horses, and the 
next morning rode within sight of the city. 

"Wise commanders always own 
What's prosperous by their soldiers done," 

and Greene expressed his pleasure by saying : "You have 
disgraced one of the best officers the enemy have." In an 
eflbrt to drag Greene along still further, Wayne wrote : "Do 
let us dig the caitiffs out. It will give an eclat to our arms 
to effect a business in which the armament of our great and 
good ally failed." Fortunately we have more than the 
usual amount of information concerning the minor inci- 
dents and the manner of life through this campaign. Cap- 
tured Indians were treated with kindness and kept in a 
room wnth fire so that they could do their cooking. We 



Anthony Wayne. 83 

are told by Wayne that "Cornell is a dangerous villian. 
He must be properly secured or bought." To Polly, "my 
dear girl," he wrote : "Tell my son when he is master of 
his Latin grammar I will make him a present equal to his 
sister's when she is mistress of her French." 

The whole force of the militia of Georgia consisted of 
ninety men. There were numbers of the men who had 
nothing like a coat. There was only one camp kettle to 
every twenty men. An officer who came to camp with a 
letter of introduction was entertained with cold beef, rice 
and "alligator water," but at a more happy time we catch 
sight of "a quarter cask of Madeira wine, ten and a half 
gallons of rum, and about two hundred weight of Mus- 
cavado sugar." When a dragoon was scalped and his body 
dragged about the streets of Savannah, Wayne proposed to 
make victims of an Indian chief and a British officer. He 
prevented Mrs. Byng, a free quadroon, from being sold as a 
slave with her children, though her husband had been 
executed " as a villain, a murderer and outlaw." A lady 
asked to see him and sent him a union cockade, to which 
he gallantly replied : "Nature has been but too partial in 
furnishing Miss Maxwell with every power to please. Not- 
withstanding these dangerous circumstances, the general as 
a soldier cannot decline the interview." The personal ser- 
vant of the British Captain Hughes, who had been captured, 
he on request sent back, and the captain appreciated "the 
uncommon attention and extreme courtesy." 

Through it all Greene kept up a constant nagging. 
"You will please order the same issues as are directed in 
this army. I am willing the troops should have what is 
sufficient, but by no means more," and at another time, "I 
was told you proposed to get some clothing from Charles- 
town and pay in rice. ... I Avish you therefore to 
avoid it nor attempt anything of the kind," were some of 
his cheering messages. On the sixth of June he rather 
overdid himself, writing : " Far less regularity and economy 
has been made use of in the subsistance of your troops than 



34 Anthony Wayne, 

I could have wished. ... I find one pound and a 
quarter of beef and one pound and a quarter of rice is a 
sufiicient ration for any soldier . . . both men and 
oflicers should be allowed a reasonable subsistence, but 
nothing is more pernicious than indulgence." In one 
sense no letter was ever more happily conceived. It called 
forth and secured for our benefit a pen sketch by Anthony 
Wayne of one of his campaigns, which is a contribution to 
historical literature. In response Wayne said : " I have 
received yours of the 6th inst. on the subject of rations 
and economy. ... I am extremely obliged to you for 
the anxiety you express for every part of my conduct to 
appear in the most favorable light. ... On the 19th 
of January we passed the Savannah River in three little 
canoes, swimming the horses; that by manoeuvres we 
obliged the enemy to abandon every outpost and to retire 
into the town of Savannah ; that we found the country a 
perfect desert, neither meat or bread kind except what was 
within the influence of their arms; that notwithstanding 
this circumstance and surrounded by hostile savages we 
subsisted ourselves from the stores of the enemy at the 
point of the sword until with the assistance of a few re- 
claimed citizens, artificers and slaves we built a number of 
large boats and rebuilt twelve capital bridges for the pur- 
pose of transportation, and three respectable redoubts to 
enable us to hold the country, without any other expense to 
the public than a few hundred bushels of rice and beef in 
proportion, which beef as well as at least one-third of all 
that has yet been issued in this army cost the United States 
nothing except the lives of three or four men ; the very salt 
we used was made by ourselves, and the iron, etc., with 
Avhich our horses were shod, boats built, wagons repaired, 
espoutoons made and every kind of smithwork done were 
also procured without any cost to the public except for a 
very small proportion for which, as well as the labor, we 
were necessitated to barter some articles of provisions. We 
were also obliged to exchange some rice and meat for leather 



Anthony Wayne. 35 

and thread to make and repair the horse accoutrements, 
harness, etc., or to abandon the countr3^ . . . No army 
was ever supported for less expense or more service rendered 
in proportion to numbers than on the present occasion. 
. . If severe discipline, constant duty, perpetual alarm, 
and facing every difficulty and danger be an indulgence, I 
candidly confess that the officers and men under my com- 
mand have experienced it to a high degree." 

At half after one o'clock on the night of June the 24th 
the Creek Indians, with British assistance, made an attack 
upon the post, but after the first surprise were soon routed, 
leaving many dead, including two white men, on the field. 
One hundred and seven horses were among the spoils, but 
their masters, the Indian braves, were subjected to "the 
bayonet to free us from encumbrance." 

The end of it all was that, on the eleventh of July, the 
British sailed away from Savannah to the West Indies. On 
the twelfth Wayne, at the head of his horsemen, rode in 
triumph through the streets of the city and the soil of 
Georgia was never again trodden by the feet of the enemy. 
The grateful State set apart four thousand guineas to buy 
for Wayne a tract of land, and the captious but converted 
Greene bore tribute before the Congress to his " singular 
merit and exertions." 

He had one further and final service to render to his 
country in the War of the Revolution. When on the four- 
teenth day of December, 1782, the British forces marched 
out of the city of Charleston, leaving at last the Southern 
colonies to rest and peace, two hundred yards in their rear 
at the head of that part of the Continental army, bringing 
with him promise and hope, Anthony Wayne rode into the 
relieved city, a fitting climax to his many efl:orts and trials 
through the eventful struggle. 

The ensuing ten years Wayne spent in civil pursuits and 
private life, endeavoring to recover from the effects of a 
malarial fever contracted in Georgia, at one time believed 
to be fatal, and struggling with those financial difficulties 



30 Anthony Wayne. 

which beset men who devote their energies to the public 
service instead of to the betterment of their own fortunes. 
Throughout all of this period, notwithstanding the treaty 
of peace, the embers of the war were still smouldering, and 
it Avas not until after the close of the second contest in 1812 
that Americans could feel secure in their independence. 
The country west of the Ohio was occupied by Indian tribes 
ever ready to bring devastation, destruction and desolation 
to the homes of the border settlers, and ever incited and 
aided by the British who held a number of posts along the 
lakes. Washington, who had become the President of the 
United States, selected, to command forces sent to overawe 
them, Harmar and St. Clair in succession, and each was in 
turn defeated, the latter with circumstances of peculiar 
horror and dismay from the loss of such noted soldiers as 
Butler and Crawford, the latter burned at the stake. Then 
he sent for Anthony Wayne, gave him at last the commis- 
sion of a major general, and placed him in command of the 
Arm}^ of the United States. In modest and serious words 
Wayne accepted the responsibility. " I clearly foresee that 
it is a command which must inevitably be attended with 
the most anxious care, fatigue, and difficulty, and from 
which more may be expected than will be in my power to 
perform, yet I should be wanting both in point of duty and 
gratitude to the President were I to decline an appointment 
however arduous to which he thought proper to nominate 
me," was the language of his letter to the Secretary of War, 
April 13th, 1792. 

The underlying motive of the war was the determination 
of the Indians to make the River Ohio the permanent 
boundary between them and the United States, and the 
fact that after the concession by Virginia of her western 
claims the Ohio Company, under the leadership of Rufus 
Putnam, had established a settlement within what is now 
the State of Ohio. Within seven years fifteen hundred 
people had been massacred. Another defeat, said the Sec- 
retary of War with auspicious suggestion, would be ruinous 



Anthony Wayne. 37 

to " the reputation of the government." In its origin, in 
its conduct, in its results, and even in its details, the ex- 
pedition was almost a repetition of the march of C?esar 
into Gaul. The tierce savages of a vast and unknown ter- 
ritory were about to be subjected, and an empire of civiliza- 
tion to be erected upon the lands over which they held 
sway. Wayne organized his army in Pittsburg and some 
such forecast must have occurred to the minds of those 
in authority, for it was called not an army but a legion. 
This legion, it was intended, should be composed of over 
four thousand men, but there were actually under arms 
two thousand six hundred and thirty-one. Where it was 
recruited appears with approximate accuracy in June, 1793, 
when the Secretary of War sent one hundred and nineteen 
men from Pennsylvania, one hundred and one from Vir- 
ginia, one hundred and one from ISTew Jersey and thirty 
from Maryland, and when Wayne issued a call for volun- 
teers for six wrecks one hundred and sixty-six from Ohio, 
one hundred and sixty-four from Westmoreland, one hun- 
dred and sixty-four from Washington, eighty from Fayette, 
and eighty-two from Allegheny, these last four being coun- 
ties in Pennsylvania. Along with the organization of the 
legion came the most rigid enforcement of discipline. 
During the progress of the campaign, in which the great- 
est vigilance w^as necessary, at least two soldiers were shot 
to death for sleeping on their posts. When Wayne found 
some of them drunk in the village, now the city of Cincin- 
nati, he ordered that no passes be thereafter granted. 
Whiskey was kept out of the camp. Careful directions 
were issued describing the methods of meeting attacks upon 
each flank and upon the rear. He placed reliance on the 
bayonet and the sword, and urged his men not to forget 
that "the savages are only formidable to a flying enemy." 
The crowns of the hats of the men were covered with bear 
skin. He insisted upon cleanliness of person and regularity 
of diet. "Breakfast at eight o'clock, dine at one; meat 
shall be boiled and soup made of it ... a good old 



38 Anthony Wayne. 

soldier will never attempt to roast or fry his meat." Every 
day the field officers, sub-lieutenants and captains of the 
guard dined with him, and his salary did not pay the ex- 
penses of the table. One hundred lashes with w^re cats 
were sometimes inflicted as punishment. He adroitly sowed 
and cultivated dissensions among the Indians, having in his 
army the chief Cornplanter as well as ninety Choctaws and 
twenty-five Chickasaws. The war lasted for over two years, 
and we are enabled to appreciate the condition of wilderness 
in which it was conducted when we learn that he was with- 
out communication from the Secretary of War in Philadel- 
phia from December to April. The British, contrary to the 
provisions of the treaty of peace, had established certain 
posts within the country and Wayne was given authority if 
he found it necessary to dislodge them. To his wisdom 
and discretion, therefore, was trusted the grave question of 
renewing the war with England. Just before the march an 
interesting incident occurred. On the first of June, 1792, 
he granted a leave of absence to Alexander Purdy, a soldier 
in Captain Heth's company, in order that he might assist 
in printing at Pittsburg a pamphlet written by Hugh H. 
Brackenridge, " the first publication of the kind ever pro- 
posed in the western country." 

Late in the summer of 1792 he moved his army twenty- 
seven miles down the Ohio River and there encamped for 
the winter. In May of 1793 he advanced as far as the 
site of Cincinnati. Like all human movements in which 
various forces are concerned, there was much delay due to 
differences of views and divergences of counsels. Wayne 
had reached the conclusion that we should never have a 
permanent peace until the Indians were taught to respect 
the power of the United States, and until the British were 
compelled to give up their posts along the shores of the 
lakes. In Philadelphia the Government was timid about 
entering upon the war, and previous defeats had made it 
fearful of the outcome. Knox, the Secretary of War, wrote 
that the sentiments of the people " are adverse in the ex- 



Anthony Wayne. 39 

treme to an Indian War," and again " it is still more neces- 
sary than heretofore that no oftensive operations should be 
undertaken against the Indians," and finally that a " defeat 
at the present time and under the present circumstances 
would be pernicious in the highest degree to the interests 
of the country." While the hostile Indians were perfecting 
their combinations and holding their pow-wows with Simon 
Girty and an aide of the British Colonel Simcoe, who prom- 
ised them protection as well as arms, ammunition, and pro- 
visions, the Government sent B. Lincoln, Beverly Randolph 
and Timothy Pickering to Fort Erie to negotiate for peace. 
The result of these efforts was that after gaining what time 
was needed the Indians refused to treat at all, and the duty 
fell upon Wayne to see that the commissioners reached 
home with their scalps on their heads, for which they for- 
mally gave him thanks. To make a general war was the 
conclusion of the tribes. Wayne then wrote to Knox: 
" Knowing the critical situation of our infant nation and 
feeling for the honor and reputation of the government 
which I shall support with my latest breath, you may rest 
assured that I will not commit the legion unnecessarily." 

By the thirteenth of October he had marched to a point 
on a branch of the Miami Eiver, eighty miles north of Cin- 
cinnati, where he found a camp which he fortified and called 
Greenville and there he remained through the winter. The 
march was so rapid and the order maintained so perfect, 
that the Indian scouts were bafiied. From there he sent a 
corps with guides and spies six miles further along the trail 
of Sarmar to secure "intelligence and scalps." He Hkewise 
detached a force to go to the field where St. Clair had been 
defeated, to bury the bones of the dead and erect a fort 
called Fort Recovery. 

In May a lieutenant with a convoy gallantly charged and 
repelled an assault. 

On the thirtieth of June about seventeen hundred of the 
enemy made a desperate attempt to capture an escort under 
the walls of Fort Recovery and to carry the fort by storm, 



40 Anthony Wayne. 

keeping up a heavy fire and making repeated efforts for 
two d&ja, but were finally repulsed. Twenty-one soldiers 
were killed and twenty-nine wounded, and no doubt both 
sides were animated by the memories of the misfortunes of 
St. Clair at the same place. A few days later, after receiv- 
ing some reenforcements of mounted men from Kentuck}-, 
he marched seventy miles into the heart of the Indian coun- 
try, built Fort Defiance at the junction of the Le Glaize and 
Miami rivers, and then within sight of a British fort on the 
Miami made his preparations for the battle which was in- 
/ evitable. He had marched nearly four hundred miles 
' through the country of an enemy, both watchful and vin- 
dictive ; had cut a road through the woods the entire way, 
upon a route longer, more remote and more surrounded 
with dangers than that of Braddock; had overcome the 
almost insuperable difficulties of securing supplies ; had 
built three forts, and now had reached a position where 
the issue must be decided by arms. On the morning ot 
August 20th, 1794, the army advanced five miles, with the 
River Miami on the right, a brigade of mounted volunteers 
on their left, a light brigade on their rear, and a selected 
battalion of horsemen in the lead. They came to a place 
where a tornado had swept through the forest, and thrown 
down the trees, since called the Fallen Timbers, and where 
the twisted trunks and limbs lay in such profusion as to 
impede the movements of the cavalry. Here the Indians, 
two thousand in number, encouraged by the proximity of 
the British fort, determined to make a stand. Hidden in 
the woods and the high grass, they opened fire upon the 
mounted men in the front and succeeded in driving them 
back to the main army. The enemy were formed in three 
lines in supporting distance of each other, extending for 
about two miles at right angles to the river and were pro- 
tected and covered by the woods. Wayne formed his force 
in two lines. He soon perceived from the firing and its 
direction that they were strong in numbers on his front and 
were endeavoring to turn his left flank. He met this situa- 



Anthony Wayne. 41 

tion by ordering up the rear line to support the first, by 
sending a force by a circuitous route to turn the right ot 
the enemy, by sending another force at the same time along 
the river to turn their left, and by a direct charge with 
trailed arms in the front to drive the Indians from their 
covert with the bayonet, his favorite w^eapon. The Indians 
could not resist the onset, broke in confusion, and were 
driven two miles in the course of an hour through the woods 
with great loss. Their dead bodies and British muskets 
lay scattered in all directions. The next day Wayne rode 
forward and inspected the British fort. The Major in com- 
mand wanted to know " in what light am I to view your 
making such near approaches to this garrison ?" to which 
Wayne replied that, had the occasion arisen, the fort would 
not have much impeded " the progress of the victorious 
army." All of the villages, corn fields, and houses, includ- 
ing that of McKee, the British Indian agent, within a scope 
of one hundred miles were burned and destroyed. 

American annals disclose no such other victory over the 
savage tribes. For the next quarter of a century there 
were peace and safety along the border. It secured for 
civilization the territory between the Ohio and the Missis- 
sippi rivers. It made possible the development of such 
states as Ohio, Illinois and Indiana. When the informa- 
tion reached London the British Government, recognizing 
that the cause of the Indians was hopeless, ordered the 
evacuation of the posts at Detroit, Oswego and Niagara. 
Twenty years later there was written in praise of Perry's 
victory on Lake Erie that it was only second in importance 
to the West to that of Wayne at the Fallen Timbers. 

Two weeks later Wayne was crushed to the earth by a 
falling tree, so much bruised as to cause great pain and 
hemorrhages, and only the fortunate location of a stump, 
on which the tree partially lodged, saved his life. 

After the treaty of cession and peace had been executed, 
and after an absence in the wilderness for three years, he 
returned home in 1795, everywhere hailed with loud acclaim 



42 Anthony Wayne. 

as the hero of the time and received in Philadelphia by the 
City Troop and with salvos from cannon, ringing of bells, 
and fireworks. 

His last battle had been fought. His work was done. 
" Both body and mind are fatigued by the contest," were 
his pathetic words. Soon afterward the President sent him 
as commissioner to Detroit and on his return he died at 
Presque Isle, now Erie, December the 15th, 1796. 

We have this description of his personal appearance: "He 
was above what is termed the middle stature and well pro- 
portioned. His hair was dark. His forehead was high and 
handsomely formed. His eyes were dark hazel, intelligent, 
quick and penetrating. His nose inclined to be aquiHne." 

His was a bold spirit. His six wounds indicate that he 
did not hesitate to expose his person when need arose, but 
he possessed beside that moral courage which enabled him 
to move with steady step when confronted with diflicult and 
complicated propositions where the weak waver. Neither 
the fortifications at Stony Point nor the unknown wilds of 
Ohio made him uncertain. No man was potent enough 
either in military or civil affairs to give him aflfront with 
impunity. He was on the verge of a duel ^vith Lee, with 
St. Clair, and with some others. He did not hesitate on 
occasion to say " damn." At the same time he was almost 
sentimental in his affections. Attached to his wife, who 
was ever to him " Polly," or " my dear girl," he wanted 
her to come to him in camp, and he never wrote to her with- 
out telling her to kiss for him his " little son and daughter." 
A negro boy waited upon the officers of the light infantry, 
and when the corps was dissolved they determined to sell 
him. " The little naked negro boy, Sandy," wrote "Wayne, 
" so often ordered to be sold, is in my possession and newly 
clothed. I shall take care of him." 

He had healthy cravings. He was fond of porter and 
Madeira, of venison, cheese and sugar, of dress, of the ap- 
proval of his fellow men, of the glory that follows suc- 
cessful military achievement. He drank tea as well as wine. 



Anthony Wayne. 43 

He could be prudent and even diplomatic. Had he rushed 
upon the Pennsj^lvania line when they were aroused and 
angry, he would have been killed. He opposed in 1778 
chasing after Clinton in Connecticut. Contrary to the 
thought of "Washington, he ordered a regiment to follow 
towards Stony Point for the purpose of having the men 
who were to make the charge strengthened by a sense of 
support. When the irritated Colonel Humpton claimed 
that Wayne's servant had taken his puppy and demanded 
its return Wayne presented his compliments, denied the 
facts, declined to " dispute so trifling a matter," and sent 
the dog. He refused to lend his pistols to his friend, Major 
Fishbourne, who wanted to fight a duel. He had certain 
philosophical tendencies. "For law is like war — a trade to 
a common capacity, but a science to a man of abilities," 
he wrote to his son, and again, "let integrity, industry and 
probity be your constant guides." He did not believe that 
the Colonies could depend upon the aid of France, but 
contended that they must rest " on the firm ground of our 
own virtue and prowess." It was because of these tenden- 
cies that he was so particular about the discipline and dress 
of the soldiers, so insistent upon the provision for their 
needs, so reliant upon the moral efiect of the cutting edge 
of a weapon, and so careful to cultivate the pride and esprit 
of the corps. He always wanted Pennsylvania troops to be 
with him in his campaigns, not that he intended to reflect 
upon those of other states, but because they and he had 
learned to trust each other and knew the value of the 
association. His willingness to encounter danger and to 
take the risks of responsibility was by no means all due to 
to the impulse of a military temperament. He saw, and 
more than once made his vision plain, that many and per- 
haps the most of those around him were subservient in 
thought and feeling. They had so long regarded the English 
as masters that when they met them as foes they had more 
respect for the enemy than confidence in themselves. He 
knew that the first step toward independence must be an 



44 Anthony Wayne. 

enlargement of soul. He called no Englishman a Hannibal, 
and when he met the pseudo Roman on the James, struck 
him with a spear, and after his capture invited him to dine. 
The sui)reme contribution of Wayne to the American 
cause was that more than any other general he gave it 
inspiration. He proved that an English force could be 
assailed and compelled to surrender in a stronghold regarded 
as impregnable, and his conduct affected for good the whole 
army. The most diffident were given courage by the 
example of Wayne. 

His letters, while lacking in literary skill and somewhat 
too roseate in their style, unlike much of the correspond- 
ence of the period, which is stilted, stiff and vague, always 
give vivid pictures and make entirely plain the thought he 
purposed to convey. I^o one can read them intelligently 
without being impressed with the accuracy of their reason- 
ing and the correctness of his judgment upon military prob- 
lems. He understood the conditions in Georgia better than 
Greene. He comprehended the situation in Ohio more 
clearly than Knox. The orders of Washington, Schuyler, 
Lafayette and Greene show very plainly that when they 
were met by a difficult situation, requiring strenuous mental 
and physical effort, they were all disposed to call for the 
assistance of Wayne. Every general under whom he 
served sent him to the front. He had the advance at Ger- 
mantown, and Monmouth, and on the James in Virginia. 
He was the first to enter Savannah and Charleston. No 
other general of the Revolution had so varied an experience. 
Greene came the nearest to him in this respect, but he 
neither fought so far i^forth nor so far South, He was the 
only one of them who added to his reputation as a soldier 
after the close of the Revolution. The most dang-erous 
event that can happen to a successful general is to be 
required to command under different conditions in a later 
war. History is strewn with the wrecks of reputations lost 
under such circumstances. Wayne was subjected to this 
supreme test, and still he triumphed. He is the only gen- 



Anthony Wayne. 45 

eral of the Revolutionary War in whose achievements the 
great West, rapidly becoming the source of power in our 
government, can claim to have participation. The final 
popular judgment upon all questions is sure to reach the 
truth. As time has rolled along most of the generals of 
the Revolution have become as vague as shadows, but 
Wayne remains instinct with life and the heart yet warms 
at the recital of his deeds. No Commonwealth in America 
but has a county or town bearing his name. New York 
has made a State park of Stony Point, and ere long Ohio 
will do the like for the Fallen Timbers. One of the most 
inspiring of our lyrics written in the stress of the War of 
the Rebellion tells hoAV " The bearded men are marchino-in 
the land of Anthony Wayne." 

By no chance, therefore, does it happen that his statue is 
set upon the centre of the outer line at Valley Forge. It is 
where he stood in the cold and the drear of that gloomy 
and memorable winter, and the place he held on many a 
field of battle. This hallowed camp-ground, where was 
best shown that spirit of endurance and persistence which 
created a nation, shall tell, through the coming ages, to the 
future generations of men, the story of the bold soldier and 
consummate commander whose place seemed ever to be 
where the danger was the most threatening, and prudence 
and skill were the most essential. 



ANTHONT IV^TNE 



BY 
SAMUEL W. PENNYPACKER 



Printed by 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1908 



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"i-.r 

■•L 



